Macleod of Dare eBook

of a pin-head. But Miss White must needs tear
up her dainty little pocket-handkerchief, and bind
that grievous wound, and condole with the poor victim
as though she were suffering untold agonies. It
was a pretty sort of idleness. It seemed to harmonize
with this still, beautiful summer day, and the soft
green foliage around, and the still air that was sweet
with the scent of the flowers of the lime-trees.
They say that the Gaelic word for the lower regions
ifrin, is derived from i bhuirn, the
island of incessant rain. To a Highlander, therefore
must not this land of perpetual summer and sunshine
have seemed to be heaven itself?

And even the malicious Carry relented for a moment.

“You said you were going to the Zoological Gardens,”
she said.

“Yes,” he answered, “I am.
I have seen everything I want to see in London but
that.”

“Because Gerty and I might walk across the Park
with you, and show you the way.”

“I very much wish you would,” said he,
“if you have nothing better to do.”

“I will see if papa does not want me,”
said Miss White, calmly. She might just as well
be walking in Regent’s Park as in this small
garden.

Presently the three of them set out.

“I am glad of any excuse,” she said, with
a smile, “for throwing aside that new part.
It seems to me insufferably stupid. It is very
hard that you should be expected to make a character
look natural when the words you have to speak are
such as no human being would use in any circumstance
whatever.”

Oddly enough, he never heard her make even the slightest
reference to her profession without experiencing a
sharp twinge of annoyance. He did not stay to
ask himself why this should be so. Ordinarily
he simply made haste to change the subject.

“Then why should you take the part at all?”
said he, bluntly.

“Once you have given yourself up to a particular
calling—­you must accept its little annoyances,”
she said, frankly. “I cannot have everything
my own way. I have been very fortunate in other
respects. I never had to go through the drudgery
of the provinces, though they say that is the best
school possible for an actress. And I am sure
the money and the care papa has spent on my training—­you
see, he had no son to send to college. I think
he is far more anxious about my succeeding than I
am myself.”

“But you have succeeded,” said Macleod.
It was, indeed, the least he could say, with all his
dislike of the subject.

“Oh, I do not call that success,” said
she, simply. “That is merely pleasing people
by showing them little scenes from their own drawing-rooms
transferred to the stage. They like it because
it is pretty and familiar. And people pretend
to be very cynical at present—­they like
things with ‘no nonsense about them;’ and
I suppose this son of comedy is the natural reaction
from the rant of the melodrama. Still, if you
happen to be ambitious—­or perhaps it is
mere vanity?—­if you would like to try what
is in you—­”